NVD / CVE Program· CNA GitHub_M

CVE-2026-59933: PhpSpreadsheet: XLS/OLE sector-chain self-loop causes memory exhaustion

Noroxi assessment

Priority: Monitor (action score 30/100)

The sources we track (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, Metasploit, Nuclei, GitHub) show no public exploit code or exploitation in the wild.
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days: 0.46% (FIRST EPSS).
Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it. No account or password is required. No user action is required. No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.
According to CISA the attack is automatable: targets can be found by mass scanning.
Fixed version: phpoffice/phpspreadsheet (Packagist) 2.1.18, 2.4.7, 3.10.7.

Low priority for now. Upgrade to phpoffice/phpspreadsheet (Packagist) 2.1.18, 2.4.7, 3.10.7 or later.

Generated automatically from the record's data: CVSS (NVD and CNA), CISA KEV and SSVC, FIRST EPSS, exploit sources, fixed versions. How we calculate it

Primary sources: NVD · CVE.org · FIRST EPSS

PhpSpreadsheet is a pure PHP library for reading and writing spreadsheet files. In versions 4.0.0 through 5.8.0, 3.3.0 through 3.10.6, 2.2.0 through 2.4.6, 2.0.0 through 2.1.17, and all releases up to and including 1.30.5, the OLE reader follows sector chains from attacker-controlled XLS/OLE metadata without detecting cycles or enforcing a maximum chain length. A tiny malformed .xls/OLE file can set the small-block depot sector chain to point back to itself. During normal XLS detection, OLERead::read() appends the same sector data repeatedly until the PHP process exhausts memory. This is reachable from Reader\Xls::canRead() and therefore from automatic spreadsheet type detection. Applications that accept attacker-controlled spreadsheet uploads can suffer denial of service from a very small file. This issue has been fixed in versions 5.8.1, 3.10.7, 2.4.7, 2.1.18 and 1.30.6.

HighCVSS 7.5 · v3.1—No exploit Fix available

Published: Jul 28, 2026
Updated: Oct 23, 2026
EPSS: 0.4% · 40th percentile
CWE: CWE-400

Report tools

JSON

Action score

Monitor

Low priority for now.

CVSS: 30 / 40 · 7.5 / 10
CISA KEV: 0 / 30 · Not listed
EPSS: 0 / 30 · 0.4%

CISA SSVC decision

Exploitation: proof of concept
Automatable: yes
Technical impact: partial

Vulnrichment: CISA's decision-tree inputs.

CNA vs NVD score

NVD: —
CNA · GitHub_M: 7.5; NVD has not scored this yet; the score shown is the CNA’s.

The score given by the assigning authority versus NVD’s independent score. A gap means the severity is contested.

Get told when this record changes

Not in KEV: no record of exploitation in the wild
No public exploit code on record
A fix has been released

If any of these changes, we'll tell you in the daily email digest.

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Noroxi analysis

What does it mean in your environment?

The assessment above is generated automatically from the record's data; it doesn't know your environment. Our team verifies on your systems whether this vulnerability is actually exploitable and which mitigation is enough.

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Affected systems

Is your version affected?

Pick the product and type the version you run. It's compared with this record's version ranges in your browser; the version isn't sent anywhere.

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Versions reported by the vendor

Affected version ranges reported by the assigning authority (GitHub_M). Independent of NVD's CPE analysis and usually ahead of it.

PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet
- >= 4.0.0, < 5.8.1, >= 3.3.0, < 3.10.7, >= 2.2.0, < 2.4.7, >= 2.0.0, < 2.1.18, < 1.30.6affected

Package-level exposure

OSV and GitHub Advisory data: ecosystem, package and range. SBOM matching uses this table.

Ecosystem	Package	Affected range	Fix
Packagist	phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	from 2.0.0 · before 2.1.18	2.1.18
Packagist	phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	from 2.2.0 · before 2.4.7	2.4.7
Packagist	phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	from 3.3.0 · before 3.10.7	3.10.7
Packagist	phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	from 4.0.0 · before 5.8.1	5.8.1
Packagist	phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	before 1.30.6	1.30.6

Same product

phpoffice: all records

Other highest-scoring records for the same primary product.

CVE-2018-19277securityScan() in PHPOffice PhpSpreadsheet through 1.5.0 allows a bypass of protection mechanisms for XXE via UTF-7 encoding in a .xlsx file
37Monitor
CVE-2026-45034PhpSpreadsheet: File::prohibitWrappers bypass
36Monitor
CVE-2026-34084PhpSpreadsheet SSRF and RCE via PHP stream wrappers in IOFactory::load
36Monitor

Published before and after this one in the same product

← EarlierCVE-2026-40902May 12, 2026 · PhpSpreadsheet: CPU Denial of Service via Unbounded Row Number in XLSX Row Dimensions
30Monitor
← EarlierCVE-2026-59931Jul 28, 2026 · PhpSpreadsheet: SSRF bypass via HTTP redirect in WEBSERVICE() domain whitelist
30Monitor
Later →CVE-2026-59932Jul 28, 2026 · PhpSpreadsheet: Gnumeric reader unbounded gzip expansion causes memory exhaustion
30Monitor

Remediation

Which version to upgrade to

Fix versions compiled from the vendor, package registries and Microsoft. Verify the vendor's note before upgrading.

Product / package	Fixed version	Source
Packagist:phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	1.30.6	Package registry (OSV)
Packagist:phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	2.1.18	Package registry (OSV)
Packagist:phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	2.4.7	Package registry (OSV)
Packagist:phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	3.10.7	Package registry (OSV)
Packagist:phpoffice/phpspreadsheet	5.8.1	Package registry (OSV)

Exploit status

No known public exploit

No public exploit has been observed yet. That doesn't mean you're safe, only that the bar is a little higher.

Research context

For pentesters and researchers: attack profile, score disagreement, timeline, patch commits, credits, variant and chain candidates, bug bounty scope. All derived from existing data; no exploit code.

Timeline

From publication to today: proof of concept, Metasploit module, CISA KEV and fix record. Dates are as reported by the sources.

No dated events beyond publication.

EPSS, last 120 days

FIRST EPSS daily score; only changes of 0.01 or more are recorded (step chart).

Patch and commit links

Commit, PR and diff links among the references. A starting point for patch-diffing and variant hunting; fixes, not exploits.

PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheetcommit 85f2556

Credits

All researchers

Finders, reporters and analysts named in the CNA record. Click a name for that researcher’s other records.

No credits in the CNA record.

Variant candidates

Same product, same weakness class, within 18 months. If the patch missed the root cause, the sibling bug is here.

CVE-2026-10835986 days apartPhpSpreadsheet ODS Reader: Unbounded number-rows-repeated → CPU & Memory Exhaustion (DoS)
34Monitor
CVE-2026-599320 days apartPhpSpreadsheet: Gnumeric reader unbounded gzip expansion causes memory exhaustion
30Monitor

Chain candidates

An authentication bypass and a privilege-requiring bug in the same product, published close together: combined they may become an unauthenticated path.

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Bug bounty scope

No known public program.

Source: bounty-targets-data (public HackerOne, Bugcrowd, Intigriti, YesWeHack listings).

Technical details

Attack conditions

Anyone who can reach it over the internet can trigger it.
No account or password is required.
No user action is required.
No special conditions are required; it is repeatable.

If successful

Confidentiality: none
Integrity: none
Availability: high · the service can be disrupted

Attack vector: Network
Attack complexity: Low
Privileges required: None
User interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality impact: None
Integrity impact: None
Availability impact: High

Weakness class (CWE)

CWE-400 · Uncontrolled Resource Consumption

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

nvd-secondary

Root cause

Code that parses nested structures sets no depth or size limit. A small input can turn into a disproportionate processing load.

The bug in code

The whole CWE-400 class

A representative example of this vulnerability class. Not the vendor's source code; it shows the faulty pattern and its fix.

Vulnerable

1function expand(node) {
2  return node.children.map(expand);
3}

Fixed

1const MAX_DEPTH = 32;
2function expand(node, depth = 0) {
3  if (depth > MAX_DEPTH) throw new Error("too deep");
4  return node.children.map((c) => expand(c, depth + 1));
5}

Attack context

MITRE CAPEC attack patterns and ATT&CK techniques for this weakness class (CWE). A starting point for detection rules and threat hunting.

Attack patterns (CAPEC)

ATT&CK techniques

Endpoint Denial of ServiceT1499

Change log

Fix✗ → ✓Sep 28, 2026, 10:46 PM UTC

For records you follow, these changes also arrive as notifications. →

References

github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/commit/85f2556b0bf5269061bf45932ecda8a128d81750

Show all references (6 more)

Vendor advisories and official records. Exploit/PoC links are deliberately left out.

All records